PC Tech Thread

I'd second the SSD advice.

I'd also upgrade to Windows 10. Do a bit of googling and you'll find how to do it for free or there are plenty of options for buying a copy for under a tenner.

If you've not used it for 1.5 years then I'm guessing there's not much on there you need. I'd copy anything you want onto a flash drive and do a clean install.

changed my mind again...

Another stupid question... (I really do need to have my PC built now...)

What does the below mean, it's on the specs on the X570 AORUS ELITE AMD motherboard.

1 x USB Type-C™ port with USB 3.2 Gen 2 support, available through the internal USB header

Do I need to get a case that has a USB-C port? Or if I have chosen a case that already has 1 USB-C port, do I need to get an extra USB header to make 2 USB-C ports?

Thanks

If your case has one or more USB ports on front/top, then it should come with a single cable to plug into the USB header (socket basically) on the motherboard. I think the mention of USB-C in the specs is irrelevant, as that's just the shape of the external port.

You could also connect the header to a USB PCIE card.

Thanks! My confusion is because this particular motherboard has the USB-C port at the front not at the back along with all the other ports, so I wasn’t sure how to get the USB-C working without additional parts.

But it seems a lot of the X570 motherboards have a USB-C port at the back, so I’ll probably just look for another one and maybe even get a cheaper case that doesn’t have a USB-C port.

Thanks again.

To be honest, in total, I only really need 2 DisplayPort / HDMI, 2 USB and 1 USB-C...

Just to say, if you do want USB-C on the front, you don't need the case to provide it - you can get a front panel like this. Again it will come with cables to plug into the motherboard's headers.

Oh thanks! I don’t mind if it’s at the front or at the back, as long as I get a couple!

You’ve built it?! How is it?

No I haven’t. Every time I am about to take out my credit card, a new part is coming that sounds awesome, but I really need to get it built now so I am just waiting for tomorrow to see how much the Ryzen 3950x will be.

I know... I know... there are alway going to be new parts and I should just do it...

Anyone got a Surface Book 2? Really tempted to pick one up in the Microsoft sale but fuck they still feel a tad expensive. My cheap Acer C720 Chromebook is lagging nowadays and my 13 year old Macbook isn't what is used to be. Ah.

Had a couple of Surface Pro's.
I like the look of the book but not sure I need the features that I assume the cost stems from - the discrete graphics card and secondary battery in the base/keyboard.

Think I'd go for the Surface laptop or Pro

So here is a list I am think I am happy with, any advice? Any obvious mistakes? Any saving I can make? I wanna take advantage of the black Friday offers as I can't wait till post Christmas sale now...

@chrisbmx116 @chez_jay, anyone else?

I have chosen a more expensive motherboard than I would like, but the sub £200 ones don't seen to allow SLi which is an upgrade I'd like in the next couple of years. I have gone for NVIDIA because of the 3D renderers I need being non ADM compatible, so this is non negotiable...

https://secure.scan.co.uk/web/wishlists/shareddetails/ce401784-b697-4636-9716-86f120322ddb?utm_source=wishlist&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=share

Like I said, I am waiting for later today to see how much more the Ryzen 3950X will be, if it's around the £100 mark, then I'd probably go for the upgrade, otherwise, I'll stick to the 3900X.

Scan can build it for £150 and it'll come with their usual 1 year onsite + 2 years back to base warranty. I think they said OC costs another £60, so I'd probably go for that too.

In total, it's still just about within the £250o mark... I think... I hope... then there is a new monitor, a fancy keyboard, a nice new mouse... then I need to sell more organs... (Both my kidneys are gone for my bespoke bike that is on the way...) Then I need to win the lottery... then... then... then...

think it's still rare that SLI makes a more cost effective upgrade than a newer model card a few years down the line? more for maximising performance in the moment?

edit: nm just saw 3D - assumed games.

3D rendering doesn't use SLI.

Just to chuck something else in

If you know a student to get the 15% discount then you'd get this for ~£1600
Similar CPU - guess it depends how much you need the extra cores on the Ryzen. But you get a 2080 Ti instead of a 2080.
And a lot of money left over

Intel i9-9900K (8 Core, 3.60 GHz, 16MB Cache)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti OC with 11GB GDDR6

16GB (2x8GB) 2666MHz DDR4 UDIMM
512GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
1TB 3.5inch SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)

https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdTpwNKYHFmIMDSHkE8FGEb5ryMfcyt9tLw6aWEmVW3rd1K7jtHJd2dNwuGhDVPfLZpU7c3V4hMVmtetajTeT28bRQxEg0RSQn8KtMtQDYNPpZH2NVKi%2bldMUXtoeZwiHEBmCGWU8LgdnnHwZANlO9eSOlQPeiioKFfaa%2far86zIJCMNBDRoJwYA7vs9yBLMUJknhV0dhFtG31gp3rKpPecZsud6yOTCSpIdICCSsTXLC

No they don’t but I also use the machine for other work... 😅 I would have loved to go for a really top of the class graphics card but the 2080 is as much as I could afford right now price : performance ratio.

I do know a student, I see her everyday! ME! 🤓🤓🤓

Do Scan do student discount? I must have missed that bit... 😬

Not sure if Scan do. Just brought up the Dell as I got an Aurora R7 with an 8700K and 1080Ti last year and it's been great. I've always built my PCs in the past but couldn't find anything that came close to the outlet prices. The 'scratch and dent' took me a few minutes to find. Was a 1cm scratch on the underside of the machine. So it's been out of sight since day 1.

I did look at the Alienware and I am aware of the discount, which actually is the natural choice... hummm... did you get it from the official Dell outlet as per your link?

Also, is upgrading really as easy as it sounds? Coz the first thing I want to do is to change the ram to 32gb

did you get it from the official Dell outlet as per your link?

Yep. Blagged a student discount and picked up the machine I mentioned for what seemed an extremely decent price

Yeah, very easy. I swapped out the SSD.
The ram is just as accessible

I might do, I mean the SSD on this seems decent and I would just need to change the ram... I might not even need to... hummmmm.... really tempted...

Bollocks, the Ryzen 3950X isn't going to be in the UK till Feb... bollocks!

3990X (and second mortgage) or bust!